Prologis sells two Nashville warehouses to Atlanta investor firm

Johnson Hailey pays $6 million

Sep. 10, 2013

Written by

The Tennessean

Prologis has sold a pair of Nashville warehouses to an Atlanta-based investor for $6 million, a move that comes on the heels of the San Francisco-based industrial real estate giant putting its Space Park South business park up for sale.

The warehouse purchases are the first for Johnson Hailey Investments outside of its hometown of Atlanta. The real estate investment management firm owns roughly one million square feet of multi-tenant industrial and office buildings.

Johnson Hailey paid Prologis $4.35 million for the 126,600-square-foot Bakertown Distribution Center off Antioch Pike, and another $1.65 million for the 48,000-square-foot warehouse at 1914 Elm Tree Drive off Elm Hill Pike. Both were fully occupied.

Boyd Johnson, owner of Johnson Hailey, said the firm also evaluated markets in and around Birmingham, Ala.; Chattanooga, Tenn.; and Charlotte, N.C., before picking Nashville as the best place to expand. He cited among his reasons Middle Tennessee’s diversified economy and growth potential, including excellent job growth prospects boosted by the growing young college-educated workforce committing to living here.

“Job growth is the linchpin of our business and it drives demand,” he said. “That’s what’s going to drive our business. That’s going to enable us to increase occupancy and rents over time, and that kind of environment attracts us.”

Mike Brandon, vice president and market officer for Tennessee with Prologis, said despite the sales and listing of Space Park South, the firm is committed to growing and strengthening its position locally. He cited Prologis’ purchase at the end of June of the 364,000-square-foot Elam Farms I bulk distribution building at Elam Farms in Murfreesboro as one example.

“The building we bought is more representative of the type of core assets we seek to own versus the ones we sold,” Brandon said, adding that FedEx occupies 30 percent of the building at Elam Farms, with the remaining 254,000 square feet available for lease. That space is being listed for lease by Brian Camp of ProVenture LLC.

Prologis owns 4.4 million square of space in the Nashville area, mostly in La Vergne, the Elm Hill Pike area, Lebanon and Murfeesboro. The publicly traded real estate investment trust owns more than 500 million square feet across the globe.

Getahn Ward covers growth and development for The Tennessean. Contact him at 615-726-5968 or at gward@tennessean.com. Follow him on Twitter: @Getahn.